This is how games are going to look for the Knicks. They have to scratch. They have to claw. They have to grit merely to stay in a game against a quality opponent. And sometimes, as was the case in Sunday’s nail-biting loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Knicks can do all three and still fall short.
New York fell behind early in South Beach, then rallied late to make the game interesting before Terry Rozier’s late-game heroics buried the Knicks in a 109-99 loss to the Miami Heat on Tuesday.
Rozier finished with 34 points and made eight threes on 11 attempts. His last attempt from downtown, a side-step three over and an excellent contest from Miles “Deuce” McBride, was the nail in the coffin for a Knicks team falling shot on Tuesday.
And just like that, the Knicks are on a three-game losing streak. They blew a game in San Antonio against a lottery-bound Spurs team. They lost to the Thunder on a game-winning shot from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. And now they’ve lost to the Miami Heat thanks to a poor start at the end of the first quarter.
With just eight regular-season games left on the schedule before the playoffs begin, the Knicks now find themselves on a drought.
The Knicks have now fallen to fifth in the Eastern Conference, tied in record with an Orlando Magic team owning the season series, 3-1.
Donte DiVincenzo erupted for 31 points, including 6-of-15 shooting from downtown, and Miles McBride added 24 points on four-of-eight shooting, but Jalen Brunson got off to a cold start and finished with just 20 points on 5-of-18 shooting from the field.
The Knicks also got a breakout game from Bojan Bogdanovic, who scored 16 points in 20 minutes off the bench.
It wasn’t enough to combat a Heat offense solely fueled by a hot-shooting night from Rozier.
The Knicks, in fact, were in the mix to acquire Rozier at the trade deadline for bench scoring after dealing Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors in the OG Anunoby deal.
The Heat beat the Knicks to the deal, sending Kyle Lowry and a first-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets to acquire Rozier ahead of the Feb. 8 trade deadline.
The Knicks trailed by as many as 16 thanks to some slippage at the end of the first quarter. The Heat led just 19-17 at the 4:36 mark of the first before finishing the period on a 15-3 run.
New York tied the game at 92 midway through the fourth quarter before the Heat ultimately pulled away in the final moments of regulation.
Rozier finished with 31 points and hit seven threes on 10 attempts, Jimmy Butler added 17 points and six assists, and Bam Adebayo finished with 15 points and nine rebounds.
Miami’s Hayward Highsmith came off the bench and finished with 12 points and eight rebounds and played elite defense as a lanky, six-foot-five wing defending Brunson.
Next up, the Knicks return to Madison Square Garden to host the Sacramento Kings before embarking on a four-game road trip with two stops against the Chicago Bulls, then trips to Milwaukee to face the Bucks and Boston to face the No. 1 seeded Cetlics.
